


One, two, three ... and begin.

by cerebel



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Criminal Minds, Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Candy, Dark, Dubious Consent, Emily is keeping secrets again, Execution, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Neither can JJ, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con References, Somnophilia, Stockholm Syndrome, The Occupation of Gotham, Will really is Barsad, Willsad can't catch a break
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerebel/pseuds/cerebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barsad was once William LaMontagne, Jr. Circumstances intervened. </p><p>Now he is an operative of the League of Shadows. Discovered, when a member of the Criminal Minds team recognizes his face on footage of the forces on the sole bridge reaching into Gotham. </p><p>The question would be if there's anything left in him to reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Kink Meme prompt. 
> 
> _Barsad used to be Will but something horrible happens (JJ and Henry murded etc.) and he somehow ends up in the league of shadows. Basically a Criminal Minds back story for Barsad but maybe one of the BAU recognize him on the TV during the siege and try to do something about it._ Original prompt is [here](http://tdkr-kink.livejournal.com/3076.html?thread=3105028#t3105028). 
> 
> I will try to update this every day, at least a little bit. There is more written than what's posted here!

Miles Howard is a captain, by rank. He's a good man, always has been, by anyone's definition -- perhaps not as good of an officer. Too much a friend, not enough a leader. The men would rather play poker with him than follow him into battle. 

He is married. He has two daughters. Always wanted a son, but does that mean he loves his girls any less? 

He thinks of nothing, when he walks out on this bridge. 

The man opposite moves with the roughness of a violent life, the smoothness of a trained soldier, the cocky confidence of a mercenary. 

Howard reminds himself: He is in the position of power. There is no earthly way that Homeland Security missed enough people to occupy an entire city. There is no way he can lose this negotiation. He just has to make sure it comes off as smoothly as possible.

"How many of you are there," he says, "son?"

The mercenary smirks. Howard's stomach sinks, and he says what he's thinking, instead of what he should say. Tongue tripping in his mouth. 

"You don't have enough men to stop twelve million people leaving that island." 

"No, we don't," says the mercenary. Accented, Howard notices. English? Scottish? "But you do." 

This is going so very wrong, so very fast. Three lines, and he's already on the defensive. "Why in the hell would we help you keep your hostages?" 

"If one person crosses this bridge," says the mercenary, "Gotham gets blown to hell." 

Hell, thinks Howard, doesn't have to wait for a nuclear bomb. Hell is what we just got.

~*~

This is how JJ thinks it ends. 

Three years ago, it was a sedan by the side of the highway, found with blood soaked into seats and dripped on the steering wheel. Three years ago, it was a fugitive hunt and a manhunt, and as every day passed, so, slowly, did the hope of finding William LaMontagne, Jr., alive.

Oh, there was a suspect, all right. Her name was Izzy, and she left a trail a mile wide for the first three days after she broke out of prison. Death and fire. 

After that? 

Nothing. 

A tumultuous love. From New Orleans to a baby boy named Henry to Washington, DC, to a blood-soaked sedan. 

There were always reasons at the time, weren't there? But JJ has never regretted anything more than the fact that she didn't marry Will LaMontagne when she got the chance. 

~*~

The whole thing has an aura of unreality about it. 

Introducing himself: "Captain Miles Howard," he says, and the terrorist, the mercenary, the man whose face is going to be haunting Howard's dreams for the rest of his life, extends a hand. Bastard doesn't even bother to keep a grip on his gun. He knows there's not a thing anyone can do.

"Barsad," he says. 

The accent continues to drift along, somewhere not quite in the realm of identifiable. 

"Just Barsad?" asks Howard.

"Just Barsad." 

A couple of Howard's men drag a folding table out to the center of the bridge. From a pocket, Barsad produces a sheaf of folded papers. Spread out, they prove to be a rough breakdown of Gotham by neighborhood, with population statistics. There's a nutrition profile. Distribution pyramid. It's all very thorough. Howard takes his time paging through it, knowing it would take an expert better than him to work it all out. Lists of daily supplies… calorie requirements… 

It all looks familiar, somehow. 

Barsad tilts his head. "A student of history, Captain?" 

As a matter of fact, he is. Undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, but how…

"World War II," he muses. That's why it looks familiar. This is based off of the way the British fed their citizens in wartime. No ration system, though. It's not organized. It's just injecting the minimum amount of food into sections of the populace. 

People won't be able to fight back against the terrorists. They'll be too busy fighting for food.

Seems it's been updated, though. Brought into modern times. 

"I'll carry these back to my superiors," says Howard. He thinks, this is my chance to pass this off to someone who counts. Someone who won't say the wrong things. 

"Tell them," says Barsad, "the only man I want to talk to is you." 

So much for that.

~*~

There are always three mercenaries on the bridge, always in the same formation: one, about twenty-five yards down from the official checkpoint, and two near the far end. Presumably, if there was an attack, the one would be sacrificed, and one of the two would reach cover in enough time to warn the triggerman. 

It's a sign of how thin the terrorists are stretched.

That's the best Captain Howard can do, as far as bright sides go.

Over the course of seventy-two hours, the checkpoint on the far side grows. Tents blossom. Trucks park. Sandbags, barriers set up. Most of the first responders are dismissed, replaced with experts. 

Captain Howard is not. 

Army copters in the sky, scaring back reporters. 

Planes buzzing at a safe distance. 

They listen to the President's address on the radio. 

~*~

"We end this quickly," says a General, over a dimly lit map of Gotham City. _No_ , thinks Howard, _no, no, no,_ but they load Marines onto one of the trucks full of meticulously counted food, and they hustle them to the bridge, open the barriers, and send the trucks over into the benevolent arms of the waiting mercenaries, armed to the teeth. 

Barsad holds up a hand, halting the first truck, and he beckons Howard over. 

Howard doesn't know which truck. He doesn't know anything. There's nothing to give away, except for the most basic of information, that there is danger in this convoy. 

"Is there a problem?" asks Howard.

Barsad gives him an odd look. Snaps his fingers, and mercenaries go to search the first truck. They open the back, check around the wheels and underneath, open the hood. The process is thorough and fast, taking less than a hundred twenty seconds all told, and then the first truck is waved through. 

The second Barsad waves through without even an inspection. It should be a relief, but instead Howard's heart is in his throat. Was that the key truck? Did they miss it? 

The third, he stops again. A cursory search…

Howard's heartbeat has never been so heavy. His palms sweat, and his hands would shake if he didn't have them in fists. Is that a tell? Maybe so. But it's a tell that makes sense. These terrorists would expect him to be angry. 

Halfway through the search of the fourth, Barsad turns to Howard. "Is there something you would like to say?" he asks. 

A jolt of adrenaline. "No," says Howard.

Barsad nods, slowly.

The fourth truck goes through.

Fifth, and last. Is this the one? 

"Get the driver out," says Barsad. 

"You can't do that," says Howard, impulsively. 

That smirk, again. 

The driver is a Marine. Howard can tell; the musculature, the carriage of him. He wonders if the mercenaries can tell too. Wonders right up until the instant that Barsad cocks his gun and shoots the man through the temple. 

The next forty-five seconds are a brutal struggle. The passenger of the truck, the men in the back, all of them killed one after another, with businesslike dispassion. 

Howard stays frozen.

He will hate himself for the rest of his life, for this. 

Barsad steps up to Howard, and touches the hot barrel to his throat. Howard flinches, but Barsad presses in, hard. The heat of it is such that Howard imagines it leaving a ring of burn on his Adam's apple.

"Was this your idea?" asks Barsad.

Howard shakes his head, mutely.

The gun goes away. A pat to his shoulder. "Good man." 

~*~

"… _good man._ " 

The video is blurry, the audio distant and barely audible. Directional microphone. 

Here, the mercenary pulls away, and Reid's heart 

just

_stops_.

"Oh my god," he says.

Scrambles for his cell phone.

"Get the team together." The YouTube video is frozen. The source, unknown. The subject, unknown, until this very moment. "And JJ, get JJ. It's Will. It's _Will._ " 

One, two, three...

~*~

…and _begin_.

Begin with the birth of a baby boy, underweight and crying, sickly. Begin with a father who's hardly cracked a smile in months -- not because he isn't happy, but because the act of _showing_ it puzzles him -- laughing in delight for the first time since he became a man. 

Begin with a mother cradling her boy to her chest, and naming him after the man she loves more than anything. 

Begin with _William LaMontagne, Jr._

Or does it begin later? 

With a yellow-haired girl named Jennifer missing her sister, or with the strike of a hurricane on an innocent city, or hundreds of years ago when a newspaper named a killer _Jack the Ripper_. Like the confluence of strings, these come together. 

There are a dozen beginnings. We don't know the ending yet.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's update! Feel free to also hit me up at cerebel on tumblr.

Shivering. Concrete under his palms is damp, he thinks; that explains it, right? Explains why it feels so cold to his bare fingers. Hollow drip from the bathroom in the adjoining room, from the faucet into the wide, mildew-speckled basin of the sink. It sounds too loud for what it is, but Will's ears have been stuffed full of silence for so long that he could hear the whisper of a moth's wing.

Once, or twice, or three times already he's stretched to the limit of the chains binding him to the wall and huddled against the dryer, across from that sink. Strained until he reached the controls, and flicked it on, and pressed himself against the flat, slow-heating metal.

That would make the shivers ease, for a little while.

Now, he's stopped shivering entirely. He feels small, the size of a curled-up cat in the corner of this room, so cold that he is beyond shaking.

He is alone. He has been alone for a long time, long enough to consume two of the water bottles and use the toilet … how many times? It blurs. Did she even leave him two full bottles this time? Perhaps it was only one and a half.

She leaves him alone all too often. With the silence like sharp-edged cotton creeping up his ear canals, and the cold, and the water. The dripping sink. Alone, with the memories that chase away from his grasp like razor sharp butterflies, beautiful color fluttering away that leaves him with nothing but thin, bleeding cuts.

At first, he tried to keep a list of things he knew.

His name is William LaMontagne, Jr.

He loves Jennifer Jareau.

He has a son...

He is a detective...

He...

His joints are so stiff he doesn’t know if he’ll ever uncurl from this corner. From the concrete that feels as though it’s frozen but can’t be, it can’t be that cold. Izzy wouldn’t put his life in danger. Izzy wants him to survive. Otherwise she wouldn’t have done everything that she did.

But she takes risks. She might be out robbing a bank. What if she’s dead? What if she died, and she left Will alone, dying in the dark with a clothes dryer to keep him company?

His right thumb rubs at the space where he’ll never feel a wedding ring, and he discovers, abruptly, that he can still move. He discovers it in a sob that shakes his whole body.

Please let her still be alive. Please. Please, Izzy, come back.

Please.

~*~

And here JJ is, chewing on her knuckles like she hasn’t since she was twelve years old. She’ll chew until she tastes blood. She wants to watch the video again and she doesn’t, afraid of what she’ll see, afraid of what she won’t see.

Recognition is unmistakable. Might be a man who moves with a subtle swagger, but there’s something still constrained about his body language, something tight and hunched. Something that’s very _Will_.

It’s her job to make the phone calls that everyone else is making right now. Reaching up as far as their influence goes, in the hopes of trumping the people currently on the scene. Overriding. Who better to negotiate with the terrorists than someone who knows them? Someone who might, might have a chance at understanding.

Hotchner hangs up, beside her. “The Director’s speaking to the President,” he says. “We’ll know something soon.”

On the board, someone has hung Will’s picture, next to a distant, blurry shot of the Masked Mercenary, Bane. A handful of other men, none of them identified. Will is the only one they know. Their only way in.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she says, helplessly, to herself. “How could we not have heard about this? How did he stay off the radar for _three years_?”

A throat clears behind her. Is that -- ? She turns.

“Emily?” A woman she’s only seen a handful of times, since the job in London, the INTERPOL job became official.

“Sorry, JJ,” says Emily, “but he wasn’t exactly _off_ the radar.”

~*~

A black-and-white video still on Emily's desk, the only precise part of it the timecode in the corner.

It's a case that only just made it across her desk. Bank robberies, again, this time shifting from Paris to London. Turned over to Interpol in order to make sure that the authorities were properly coordinating with one another. One bank had an internal circuit security system, not connected to a wider network. It wasn't turned off by the robbers. They have footage. They have faces, now.

Emily recognizes them both.

The slighter form of Will LaMontagne, missing for as long as Emily's been station chief in London. And the tall silhouette of -- _her_.

~*~

First time he feels the chains, he’s in searing pain. Can’t breathe. His shoulder _burns_ , a bone-deep ache like nothing he’s ever felt before. He’s shaking with it, constant shivers, a tension that does nothing but turn the pain from overwhelming dullness to short, sharp spikes.

“Hold _still_ ,” growls Izzy.

He presses a hand to his forehead, wondering when he regained consciousness. His captivity is a long blur of asleep and awake and dreaming somewhere in between, all of them colored by pain.

The gunshot wound is the touch of a dead man in Will’s flesh. A bank robber that bled out in a dirty alleyway, because Izzy forced Will to drive on, to leave him behind. It’s a punishment, for the dozen lives that are now on his hands, for failing to stop her. It’s a painful scar that keeps him down. Keeps him her pet, as long as she has him.

“I said _hold still!_ ”

His arms are tugged away from him, and blessed cold metal closes around his wrists. A feverish sigh; he presses the metal against his temple, and forces himself to stay limp.

“Good boy, Dick.”

He feels each pinprick of the needle sewing its way into his flesh.

She’s sewing up the wound she re-opened. _Bleed you all over the seat, like a Valentine for your girl._

She’s keeping him alive.

~*~

 _Routine_ isn’t the right word for it. Every single moment is terrifying. Most of the soldiers on the checkpoint spend the whole time half-flinched, like they expect the searing light of a nuclear explosion to flare at any second. No one looks directly at Gotham.

\-- They get the phone call.

“The bridge guy’s been identified,” says the General in charge of this whole thing. (Howard has some not insignificant respect for him, for having the courage just to stay on the damn bridge, and with the men who risk their lives every minute, every second to keep Gotham closed off.) “His name’s William LaMontagne, former detective in the MPD. Records are being couriered over by jet.”

“Detective?” asks Howard. “He was a cop?”

The general crosses his arms, looking out over the vastness of the bridge’s length. “Yeah,” he says. “Guess you never know, with some people.”

~*~

“What do you mean, he _wasn’t off the radar_?”

JJ hadn’t thought it was possible to go from total, utter disorientation to total, utter rage in the flip of an instant. Shows how much she knows.

Emily steps in, toward the conference room. She has a file in her hands. Paper only. “We have a fairly reliable timeline for him,” she says. “Starting about...” A quick glance to JJ, and her eyes fall. “Two years ago.”

“Two. _Years_?!”

Emily forces her eyes back to JJ. “It’s not good, JJ,” she says. “The decision to keep it quiet -- it wasn’t made at my level.”

“But you could have challenged it,” says Hotch.

“I did challenge it,” counters Emily. “The decision was made. And now... I’m unmaking it.”

She sets the file down on the table.

“I’ll give you a full briefing on the way to Gotham,” she says.

“You’re joining us?” asks JJ.

“Interpol has an interest in the case,” explains Emily. “But, the short version, now: Will has, for the last two years, been going by the name ‘Barsad’, and has been involved in everything from weapons dealing to assassination to terrorism. He came to our attention first because of the murder of Izzy Rogers.”

“Murder?” echoes Derek Morgan.

“Murder,” confirms Emily. She opens the folder, flips a few pages, and rests on an image of Izzy Rogers, familiar from the bank robberies and the hostage situation three years ago. Or, well, half of her face is familiar. The other half is … gone.

High-caliber rifle, thinks JJ, dizzily. She sits down hard on one of the chairs.

~*~

It’s two years and a month or two ago when Will steps out of the shower, fresh, warm. Izzy has a blanket spread out on the second of the hotel room beds, and on top of that, the disassembled pieces of a sniper rifle. Will recognizes it, make and model.

TV murmurs a news story in quiet, excited French.

“What about it, Dick?” asks Izzy, stepping up, sliding her arms around his neck. “Know how to use one of these?”

His body responds to her proximity, as he’s supposed to. He, cautiously, nuzzles at her throat. “I’ve shot one a time or two,” he admits.

Her fingers brush through his wet hair, and she laughs, and she kisses him with teeth sinking into his lip. He remembers, he does, and makes the soft sound of enjoyment that she’s looking for.

“How about,” she says, “we go out and make it a time or three?”

“Sounds just fine.”


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Posting this one late today; probably no update tomorrow because of it. Feel free to hit me up at cerebel @ tumblr.

Today, on the bridge, the man named Barsad -- or William -- torments his lead negotiator. 

There are no shipments scheduled for the rest of the day; they wave through the trucks, escorted by mercenary detachments. Today brings in a load of gasoline to the beseiged city, no doubt to be taken in whole by the mercenaries, for their shell-game trucks. One tanker of gasoline can last a while. Howard doesn’t know how long.

“Stay,” says Barsad, Will, whoever he is, after the trucks are gone. “We should get to know one another.” 

“No, thank you,” says Howard, stiffly.

Barsad leers. He hoists himself up on the rail of the bridge, legs dangling, and Howard entertains a brief vision of darting up and pushing him off. 

They’re bringing in FBI profilers, Howard knows. He doesn’t need a profiler to tell him that this guy’s off the deep end. That he’s sadistic. That he enjoys the power trip. No, Howard doesn’t need to be told; he lives it, every day. 

“Are you married, Captain?” asks Barsad.

For a half-second, Howard sees red. And then he breathes. It’s not a threat until it’s a threat. And possibly not even then. His wife is safe; she’s on an Army base, and she’s not going to leave until he tells her it’s safe.

“Fifteen years,” he says. Since he was too young to know better -- and thank god, too, that she snagged him while he was young and stupid. His life is better for having her in it.

“Children?” 

This question seems to have a weight to it. Howard isn’t sure he wants to answer. No, scratch that -- he’s _sure_ he _doesn’t_ want to answer. The light in Barsad’s eyes is a little too intent. Makes Howard’s spine crawl.

“Two,” he says, shortly.

“Boys? Girls?” 

“Girls.” His throat is tight.

“Do you love them?”

For the first time, Howard hears the right accent. Not that half-Irish, half-British thing. This is a slow, New Orleans drawl. This guy’s been disguising his own voice. Why stop? Does he know he’s been busted? Does he know that Howard knows? 

“What kinda question is that?” Of course he loves them.

“The most important one.” 

A long silence. Howard is acutely aware of binoculars and cameras trained on him. How many people are watching, analyzing his every move, analyzing Barsad’s? -- He nods, once.

Barsad doesn’t say a word. After a moment, Howard lifts his eyes to Barsad’s face. A strange expression, an unreadable one. 

The realization washes over him: 

This terrorist has kids.

“Give ‘em a call for me,” says Barsad, the accent back, disguised.

“Yeah. Sure.” 

Barsad slides off the rail, and each side retreats back, over the interdiction zone. 

~*~

Two weeks. 

It’s kind of an arbitrary measure of time. Will doesn’t know when they arrived, nor how long it took to get there. The drive passed in a pain and drug-induced haze. And so did the first couple of days. 

\-- Here, she strokes her fingers through his hair, dirty, unwashed. She smells clean. 

“What’re you gonna do with me?” he asks her. 

He hasn’t been a very good captive, not if _escape_ is a captive’s first duty. The gunshot wound _hurts_ , and every time Izzy pressed a pill onto his tongue, tipped water in after, he swallowed obediently and let the weight of it carry him unconscious again.

Two weeks, though: since he started being able to keep track of time. Maybe three weeks since the kidnapping, since the series of bank robberies and the hostage situation that caught Will in the middle of it all. 

Her fingers peel off the bandage over the stitches, and her thumb runs over them, one by one. He manages to stay still until the fourth, when he flinches. An exhale, through her nose; a sound that’s almost a laugh. 

He would’ve gotten married. That was what was supposed to happen: he was supposed to get married, but Izzy found him.

The room is spare and simple. Daylight from a dirty window high on the wall. Concrete below him, on all sides, in places cracked deep. A mattress on the ground, with tangled blankets. Chains that stretch to the wall.

His head is in her lap, and on his bare chest: the bandages, the antiseptic, the washcloth. She cleans each knot meticulously, thoroughly, even when he goes pale and has to gasp for breath, through the pain. She heals him even when it hurts. 

With her bare hands, she spreads the antiseptic. Massages it into his skin, in slow circles. 

“Izzy,” he says, softly. These are the hands that have killed so _many_ people, and he’d thought he’d be next -- he’d thought she blamed him for the death of her partner. He’d prepared himself to die. Henry has JJ; everything will hurt, but everything will be fine.

Instead...

“Quiet down,” she tells him, with a little pat on his shoulder. She smiles, the wide, too-friendly smile of a predator. “Everything will be fine.” 

~*~

Too many months later, when her hand strokes between his shoulderblades. He’s most of the way on his belly, the sniper rifle braced in front of him. His hands have settled on the gun with easy familiarity. He used to hunt with his daddy. Not with a gun like this, but it’s not so hard to pick up the difference, is it? 

The target is two hundred and fifty yards away. A little high, for the first time shooting a rifle like this one, but, perhaps perversely, her hand resting on him keeps him calm. Relaxed. Confident. 

Her fingers hook under the ear protection, and she murmurs, to him: “Imagine it’s JJ.” 

JJ. 

JJ, who would hardly even talk about him to her friends. Who never married him. Who never could love him as much as he loved her.

Will’s hand tightens, convulsively, but doesn’t pull the trigger.

“The bitch doesn’t deserve you,” breathes Izzy. “Imagine it’s her.” 

Will breathes in, and pulls the trigger on exhale. Perfect shot.

Izzy laughs. 

~*~

The FBI arrive. A flurry of handshakes and introductions, a handful of names that go over Howard’s head. But when they see him, hear his name, they all focus in on him. Like vultures. Or Mean Girls. 

“You were in charge of the first responders,” says one, a gawky guy with a really unfortunately large Adam’s apple. “You’re the one who’s been speaking to him.” 

“That’s right.” And here it comes, no doubt: critique of his methods. Why did you do _this_ , what possessed you to think _that_ was a good idea -- Howard is not a trained hostage negotiator, and even a trained expert would have a hard time dealing with terrorists with twelve million hostages. 

But, instead, the FBI agents -- and the one Interpol -- glance among themselves. Awkward. Like they don’t know what to say. 

“How is h--” starts one, a blonde woman.

“We’d like to hear your personal observations,” interrupts another. The one black member of the team. Morgan? Was that his name? He expects the blonde woman to be irritated at being interrupted, but instead she just backs down. Weird team dynamic at work?

“I’ve been making regular reports,” says Howard.

“Still,” says Morgan. “We ask different questions than they do.”

And, indeed, this is the case. They ask about specific phrasings, about reactions, about posture and tone, and they focus entirely too hard on the accent. 

“Could be an entire new personality,” proposes one of them. “An invention to cope with adverse circumstances, and one that bleeds through to reveal the original _Will_...” 

It’s about this time that it retroactively dawns on Howard that _they know this guy._

“I have a question,” he says, after about a half-hour of this. “How did anyone think it was a good idea to send that _bastard_ ’s friends out to take care of this?” 

A pause.

“Bastard?” echoes the blonde woman. Jareau. 

“Bastard,” he says, firmly. “I saw him murder a team of six Marines. Right in front of me. Didn’t bat an eye.”

There are photos, even. On the table. Right here. Photos of the bodies. And here, one of them steps forward, an older man -- “It doesn’t look like sadism,” he says. “These are executions. Killings of necessity.” 

The words hang in the air. Howard bristles. “You saying those men’s deaths were their own fault?” 

“No, nothing like that.” 

“Regardless,” cuts in Hotchner, “our responsibility is to reach him, and use him to exert leverage on the leader of the whole operation. It requires finding some common ground.” 

Pretty words. But that’s not going to help the dead Marines, and these people don’t have the detachment that they should. Granted, Howard himself is not exactly detached, especially after a few days of listening to that smarmy terrorist talk back, but he’s not a professional. He’s not supposed to be here. 

By the end of this conversation, he has threatened to lodge a complaint, they have promised to plant a wire on him, and he’s gotten instructions to use the name _Will_ as soon as possible in speaking with the man on the bridge.

But: carefully.

~*~

It’s not the first time he’s been left alone with Izzy’s phone. Tempting rectangle of black resting on a hotel bed. Will spent six hours cuffed to the inside of the passenger door, a blanket covering the restraints on his lap; he spent it docile and calm. 

(She reminds him, when he forgets: “Do you think I couldn’t find them, if I wanted to? The FBI will never see me coming. They think I’m _dead_. Misbehave, and JJ and Henry will pay the price.”)

Been a long time since he last tried to escape. His shoulder still hurts from it. 

She does her makeup in the mirror, around the corner. 

Will reaches out for the phone. 

(First time he picked up Izzy’s phone, he thought of a half-dozen numbers. JJ. FBI. The police. 911... and this time, he can’t remember a single number.) 

Onto the browser, and he searches for _Jennifer Jareau_. 

Press conferences, mostly. The BAU continues to work its way across the country, at a little under three cases per month. He remembers that hectic schedule. A lump rises in his throat, and he is absorbed in the simple words. _We found that this unsub... we caution women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five... please remain calm._ Hears the words in JJ’s voice, and --

The slap, then, takes him completely by surprise. Izzy hauls him off the bed and throws him against the wall. And he slides down, curling with his knees to his chest.

“I’m sorry, Izzy.” 

“Sorry?” she snaps back. “Sorry, for looking up that bitch instead of me?” 

Not sorry at all. “It doesn’t mean a damn thing,” he tells her, as earnest as he can. He almost believes himself. Getting to be a better liar -- or just getting to be more and more confused between lies and truth.

“Prove it.” 

She drops her phone back onto the bed. 

Will unfolds, moving slowly to his feet. His cheek stings. “People stalk their exes on Facebook all the time,” he says. “It was -- I was curious. Morbidly curious. Izzy, you gotta believe me.” How could he have done this? She’s obviously upset -- and he cares about that, yes, he does. He has to, because of JJ and Henry. 

She beckons him closer. 

His eyes close the instant before their lips meet. 

~*~

Four trucks, again.

“Do I have any way of knowing,” says Howard, “that this food is reaching the people it needs to reach? How do I know you aren’t hogging it for yourself?” 

Barsad -- Howard refuses to think of him as ‘Will’, an ordinary name, a nice name; prefers the sharp, foreign edges of Barsad -- tilts his head. “How well-fed do I look to you?” he asks. The tone is curious. Requesting an assessment, not dismissing the words outright. 

To be honest: not all that well-fed. The drooping eyelids and the dark circles indicate fatigue, to Howard, indicate overwork and not enough recuperation. Howard imagines he’s starting to look similar. 

“Answer the question, please.” He adds in a _please_ out of courtesy. The man with a nuclear bomb always rates a little bit of extra courtesy. 

“Would you like photos?” he asks. “Videos? I’d be happy to share.” 

The wolfish look on his face doesn’t actually reassure Howard that much.

“I think that there are people out here who would like that,” he says, “Will.” 

It’s not as subtle as it could be. He hesitates a little bit too long, and places a little too much emphasis on the name. He was hoping to just kind of skip it along, let it bounce like a rock over water. Instead, it sinks with a splash.

Barsad turns to him slowly. Unhooks his weapon, and shoves it at a mercenary to his side. 

The startled man takes it, nearly dropping his own in the process. 

Barsad advances on Howard, grips a hand in his jacket and, with a heave of muscle, _tosses_ him down to the ground. The action is so thoroughly unexpected from a man the size and weight of Barsad, against a man the size and weight of Howard, that it actually _works_ \-- he sprawls on the concrete, his head knocking back against the pavement with a solid _thunk_ that splashes stars across his vision. Barsad is on top of him, immediately, to the tune of shouts from the far side of the bridge.

“Stay back!” shouts one of the mercenaries, brandishing a gun. 

Oh god oh god oh god... If an idle word from him provokes Barsad, provokes the Army, provokes the mercenaries, provokes the triggerman...

Barsad’s hands rip open jacket, vest, shirt, and he finds the wire taped beneath like he knew it was going to be there. Maybe he did. Maybe this bastard is psychic, and he will always know which trucks have Marines, and which people have wires, and when something important is about to happen. 

The wire rips off of Howard’s skin, and Barsad stands, holding it like he would a snake. 

“Never again,” says Barsad, coldly. “Never.” 

He throws the wire off the side of the bridge. 

Takes his gun back from the mercenary, and stalks away. Howard, shocked, watches him go.


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut starts in this chapter! Keep in mind, a great deal of this is extremely dubious consent to non-consensual sex. 
> 
> As always, hit me up at cerebel @ tumblr.

Will’s reaction to the use of his name is a topic of debate. Shooting theories back and forth -- the sensitivity to his former identity, the words _never again_ \-- what did that mean? Never use the name again, never wear a wire again, never bring up his past again? The BAU focuses on the mystery to the exclusion of anything else, ignoring even the motivations for the Masked Mercenary, the reason for putting the whole city under a terrorist’s rule. Like unraveling the mystery of Will’s motivations would unlock the whole situation.

Emily doesn’t agree. 

She hasn’t told them the whole story, to be fair. They don’t know that she’s spoken to Will -- that those two years of tracking him weren’t just crime scenes and files and reports passed from desk to desk, that she was _there_ , that she saw what he had become. How he had changed. 

Will isn’t the man in charge here. Emily’s not sure Will is ever going to be capable of being in _charge_ , really, ever again. 

Stockholm Syndrome. Horrifying when it happens to someone who you don’t know; horrific when it happens to a friend. And she considered Will a friend, yes, she had. 

She finds JJ pale and cross-armed, outside the facility where they camped out. Plenty of evacuated buildings on this side of the river, and the military has occupied dozens of them, for temporary camps, for perimeters. It’s their job to keep the city locked in tight. 

JJ’s breath fogs in the air. She is shaking, and Emily doesn’t think it’s from the cold.

She steps up and stands next to JJ, silently. She can imagine a dozen things her (former?) friend could be thinking. Wonders, though, what theory of Will’s broken psyche JJ subscribes to. 

“How could you, Emily?” asks JJ, softly, after a long pause.

Ah, that. How could she indeed. It seemed like a good idea at the time, that’s all she can say. 

~*~

Blurred black and white, on the surveillance video. In many ways, a terrifying echo of that day … more than a year ago, now. The morning when three robbers took over a bank, got trapped inside, took hostages, and it all went horribly wrong from there. Just days before Will vanished out of the BAU’s lives forever.

...Forever didn’t last as long as Emily thought it would.

If it was just one of them, Emily wouldn’t be sure. But it’s both. That, that’s Will, his eyes dark and unreadable, a gun in his hand. And that is Izzy Rogers, a satisfied grin on her face, the video still frozen mid-gunshot.

“You can make it official,” says Emily, “but confidential.” She can do that, with Interpol reports. She has the authority. “That’s William LaMontagne, former detective, and that’s Izzy Rogers. Also known as the Queen of Hearts, among other things.” 

“Why confidential?” asks her subordinate, in his crisp London accent.

“She was part of a duo that terrorized half the Capitol last year,” she says. “Washington, DC. American capitol. I want to keep this under wraps.” 

“And she’s downgraded to robbing banks?”

Downgraded. Not exactly the right word, given that Izzy had been part of a bank robbery spree before she escalated it to, well, terrorism is the only real word for it. The hostage situation at the bank, and then the climactic threat of a bomb at the train station. Not _downgrading_ ; maybe, Emily thinks, returning to what’s familiar. 

“Let’s just say we should be on the lookout for a larger plan,” says Emily. “I want you to be on full alert, in case.” 

~*~

She likes him on his knees. 

He’s starting to get used to it. Go down before she even asks; her, on the edge of the hotel bed, and him, knelt on the carpet before her. Kissing her at first was neutral, at best, disgusting at worst, but now it’s something simple, something to be savored. His lips brush against hers over and over, and he stays docile as she unbuttons the loose shirt, leaning over him, and drags her fingertips down his chest. The scar has turned red, the skin shined and smooth where the bullet wound healed.

“Mmm.” Izzy smiles. “I love the way you kiss me.” A fingertip sliding up the stubble on his throat, tilting his chin up. His facial hair is soft, somewhat incongruously so; she likes to touch it, rub her palms along the lines of his jaw. “So sweet.” 

He’s not sure what kind of expression it is on his face. He imagines it’s something like worship -- it must be, by the way she tilts her head, pleased. 

She slides her panties over her hips, discards them on the ground, and slides her fingers into his hair. Pulls him in. 

She’s wet, of course. It’s the power that she gets off on, he thinks, as his tongue touches her. He licks a long line up between her vulvae, and presses the flat of his tongue against her clit. There is no hesitation, now. She doesn’t have to yank in his hair, grip him between her thighs and guide him exactly where she wants him to go. He knows. He can read every shift in her body, and every sigh. 

The way Will goes down on a woman -- it’s thorough, it’s long, it’s slow. He takes his time, and explores every bit of her. It was never a real act of submission, before; it wasn’t an act of dominance, either. It was just desire. 

In this, he feels like a puppet. Still himself, but trapped inside motions that he learned and memorized. 

“ _Hhnn,_ yes,” she breathes, her leg hooking over his shoulder. “You know just what I like, baby.” 

When she comes, it’s loud, her head thrown back and her gasps open, tinged with a laugh -- dishonest, somehow. Even her enjoyment must be thrown back at him like a weapon, for her to get all she can out of this. 

She curls a finger and summons him up, above her. 

He --

~*~

Swirl of summer river-water, still cold from the mountains. The splash from the cannon-ball submerges JJ, for a half-second, and she comes up spluttering, flicking her hair out of her face. “Will!” she shouts, admonishing. 

He surfaces laughing already, and flicks his head from side to side, scattering the water in his hair. 

She pushes off from the rocky bottom of the pool and pounces on him, shoving him underwater again. Bare skin sliding along bare skin -- didn’t even take the time to pull on a swimsuit. Last time JJ went skinny dipping, she was in high school, and it felt naughty, daring. Now it just feels spontaneous. 

The next time they come up, they’re kissing. His hand in the small of her back, supporting her, and his lips on hers like it’s life itself they’re sharing. 

“Can’t keep my hands off of you,” she murmurs into his throat. 

“Excuse me!” 

At the unfamiliar voice, JJ nearly jumps out of her skin. She twists around, an arm coming up to cover herself, even though she’s mostly submerged.

There’s an old couple on a canoe passing by, on the river. 

Will’s arm goes around her waist. Securely. “Evening,” he calls.

“ _Will!_ ” she hisses. 

“Y’all wouldn’t happen to know how far it is to the highway, would you?” 

“Another few miles downstream,” Will tells them.

“Much obliged.” The man gives them a wave. “You kids use condoms, now.” 

JJ waves, a frozen smile on her face, as the canoe rounds the bend. And as soon as it’s gone she twists, sending an elbow into Will’s ribs. “ _Will_! I can’t believe that just happened!” 

And he, of course, he’s half-paralyzed with laughter.

Later, he --

~*~

\-- he sinks inside her. 

Not long before she grows impatient, and tackles him down --

~*~

\-- but with JJ, this means wringing all the pleasure out of him that she can summon, and they spend the aftermath breathing hard against one another’s skin, and whispering stupid things to one another. 

~*~

\-- and with Izzy, this means cruelty, and when she’s finished tearing a climax out of him, she’s the one who leaves the bed. Leaves him there. He knows from experience not to move until she tells him to.

~*~

Barsad waits in the doorway. There are three men making reports to Bane. Bane, the apparent leader of this; Bane, the one who has taken great pains to make it seem as though he is the mastermind of Gotham’s captivity. 

Barsad knows better. Few others share that privilege.

He does not announce his presence. Bane will know he is here. 

Indeed: Bane’s eyes flick up, and to anyone but Barsad, they would seem impassive over the mask that covers his nose and mouth. Barsad knows better. He sees curiosity. A hint of... not concern, not apprehension. The acknowledgment, perhaps, that Barsad coming to him like this probably means that there is something wrong.

He dismisses the men with a flick of his hand, and they scatter.

Barsad closes the door behind him, leaving himself and Bane alone in what was once a judge’s chamber. 

“Brother,” rumbles Bane.

“Brother,” echoes Barsad. “They have identified … me.” The _me_ is somewhat hesitant; it feels strange, on his tongue.

Bane nods, slowly. Gestures for Barsad to sit, and instead Barsad sinks to his knees before Bane. He does it gladly, with an open heart; Bane’s hand rests heavy on Barsad’s shoulder, and he breathes easier under the weight. 

“We knew this could happen,” says Bane.

Barsad nods. 

“You will keep them distracted.” 

“I swear it.” 

Bane nods, slow. His hand lifts, and a broad thumb traces the line of Barsad’s mouth. Barsad’s lips part, and he takes the thumb between his teeth, tasting sweat and ash on Bane’s skin. It fires his body; he feels warm, and wanting, and knows that a flush spreads on his skin. 

A rumble of Bane’s laughter, and Barsad feels a dizzy surge of bliss.

“You are obedient, brother,” says Bane, “and obedience should be rewarded.” 

His free hand moves to the clasp of his trousers. 

Barsad is eager. He always is.


	5. Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter includes consensual (debatably) somnophilia. 
> 
> As always, hit me up at cerebel @ tumblr.

Howard stares in doubt at the boxes. 

“Lollipops?” 

“You remember the plan?” asks one of the FBI.

“Tell him they’re for the orphans,” Howard repeats back. “And ask for pictoral evidence.” This way, they get to know if people who can’t fend for themselves are receiving any of the food at all. Not likely that the terrorists have a store of photos of kids with Dum-Dums ready to break out at a moment’s notice. 

~*~

Managed to tune the radio to police frequencies. He listens as he drives. He has the peculiar sensation of his world widening, twisting out along unrolling streets, stretching to either side of long intersections. The radio hints at shadows beyond that still, amorphous men and women tangling with one another in a scope beyond his own sight.

He glances to the side and back, at Izzy. Grin on her face. 

No need to remind him where they’re going. They’ve gone over the plan to exhaustion -- drilled it into one another. Both of them are thorough people, careful planners, and her enthusiasm for the in-the-moment terror of it is contagious. 

And -- this _really_ cannot be overestimated -- he just really wants to get out of confinement. He may be learning to love her, and what she does to him, but there’s no real substitute for being able to breathe. 

Doesn’t even occur to him to call the police. Doesn’t think of JJ or Henry, his mind avoiding memories of them with the care of a child crossing a swift, deep creek over dry stones. 

He pulls to a stop by the bank. 

Izzy shifts up onto the balls of her feet, ready to spring out. “Hey, Dick,” she says.

Nickname, it’s become. From Will’s former rank of detective. 

He glances back, in response. 

Her lips brush over his. “For luck,” she tells him, and she steps out of the van. 

~*~

“It’s a break in MO,” says one of the analysts, musing. 

Emily rests her chin on her interlaced fingers. Conference room is state of the art, but the computer displays just make her feel subtly crowded. Will is on a good quarter of them. 

Nine months ago, Emily saved Will’s life. The then-detective was bound, duct-taped, meticulously wired with bombs to threaten the train station. Emily stayed, risked herself, risked everything to save him because it was what she was _good_ at. Because it was something that should be done. Then, Will was Izzy’s hostage -- if only at a distance, given that Izzy had Will’s son. 

Now, it’s much closer. 

Now, she has video of Will watching as Izzy makes one of her trademark gut-shots, guaranteed to kill slowly. She can’t imagine the Will she knew just standing by, just doing nothing. And, indeed, there’s a blankness in his expression, his movements, that seems uncharacteristic. 

“I mean,” continues the analyst, “she’s worked before with two or more assistants. Disposable. Get into the bank, and they go after the money while she hits a handful of very specific safety deposit boxes. It’s pretty clear she was just piggybacking her plan on top of something more flashy. But with this guy...” 

“It’s different,” another agrees. “He must be something special.”

Special. He certainly is that. 

She needs to send off notification to the BAU as soon as possible. They can help with this, thinks Emily; they might be the only ones who can. 

~*~

He awakens as Bane breaches him, the broad head of his cock pressing inexorably past the tension at Will -- at Barsad’s entrance. From asleep to awake quickly, dreams vanishing with the blink of an eye; he finds that he is slick, that he is hard, that there are traces of lubricant-fingerprints on his own length. 

There is no sense of violation at being touched in his sleep. The less that Barsad fights, the gentler Bane is -- or perhaps it’s that the gentler Bane is, the less Barsad fights. Both sorts of sex have their appeal. He needs it, often, to be the one wrestled down and forced. He can’t explain it, he can’t deny it, he can only plead for pain delivered at Bane’s hand when the feelings rise in him. He longs to be purged of the anger that rises in him like filth, but it always returns. 

He sighs out a breath, his thighs widening, his weight braced on his knees. He rests his forehead on the back of his hand, which in turn rests palm-down on the ground. 

Bane bottoms out inside him, so deep Barsad imagines he can feel it all the way into his belly. Then a slow withdraw, and he whines, soft. 

A soft _hm_ sound, audible over the hissing of the air in the mask. “Be still,” says Bane, and Barsad relaxes, his eyes closing again. Long strokes of a broad, rough hand down Barsad’s spine. A slow rhythm in and out, endlessly moving. Barsad is lulled, quieted, and he lets himself be used with such exquisite gentleness that it feels like making love. 

Eventually, he cannot stop himself from tightening up, from breathing in soft gasps. He does not beg. Bane knows what he needs. Bane -- he has absolute faith of this -- will provide it. 

Indeed, finally, a hand wraps around his cock, and he spills with barely a touch, shaking tight around the broad length inside him. 

Bane holds, long enough for Barsad to go lax again, and then withdraws, still hard. He doesn’t climax. He rarely does; the drugs interfere with his ability to, and the process of touch and submission and giving is enough for him. 

Barsad rises to clean himself. Dresses in the usual nondescript fatigues. 

“You will return to the bridge,” says Bane, statement and question both.

Barsad nods.

“Run them in circles, brother.” 

~*~

“Did you get it?” 

Izzy, in response, pulls the inner piece of the safety deposit box out of the bag. She has a wide smile. 

He echoes it. He can’t help it; the thrill of the robbery is still thrumming just under his skin. Like a high. Maybe this is what he was chasing, when he became a police officer before -- looking for a thrill, but without the willpower to break the law and face the possible consequences. 

“Should we see what’s inside?” she asks. 

“Wasn’t the deal for it intact?” He does want to see what’s inside. His curiosity is insatiable. But she’s used to him presenting obejctions; it’s normal, for them.

She rolls her eyes. “The League can take it, I’m sure.” 

But she slides the box back in, Will notes, with disappointment. 

~*~

“Candy?” 

The somewhat-Irish drawl of the terrorist is more puzzled than mocking, Howard notes. 

“It’s not on the list.” The statement, from Barsad, manages to also be an interrogation, somehow. 

Howard shrugs. “We thought we might start throwing in a little extra,” he says. 

“For what, in return?” Barsad weighs the box in his hands, as though weighing the potential costs and benefits of accepting such a gift. 

Howard wonders what he’s thinking. Does he think it’s a psychological ploy? A bribe? 

“We want to see kids getting it,” he says. “Pictures. Cell phone pictures are fine. But we want to _see_ them.”

A blink. Barsad considers. 

“A spot of brightness,” he muses. “In a world of grey.” 

He’s going to refuse, Howard thinks. Barsad’s fingers go to the tab, and rip open the box. -- He’s going to toss it in the river. He’s going to throw it back in Howard’s face.

No; instead, he plucks out one and unwraps it, sliding it between his lips.

“I’ll get you the pictures,” he promises. 

~*~

Watching, from the direct video feed hundreds of yards away: 

“Green apple,” says JJ, tightly. “That was his favorite.”

A beat, and then Spencer Reid says: “Maybe it still is.” 

JJ’s hand covers her eyes.

This, this is when Emily steps up. If she’d just been more determined, two years ago. If she’d pushed hard enough. -- She slides an arm around JJ’s shoulders, and JJ lets out a sob, a short and sharp full-body jerk of muscle. It’s enough; Emily gathers her into her arms, and murmurs nonsensical things, and lets JJ cry.


	6. Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short post today. Sorry about the radio silence; there was a sick puppy, and taking care of her consumed the weekend.

Pacing on the carpeted floor. Heel, turn. Blinds to her office closed, window to the outside world open. The coffee on her desk is untouched. Last few days, all it’s done is give her jitters. The case has her keyed up enough as it is.

Waiting. She’s never hated waiting so much. 

A lot of Interpol work, for Emily, involves holding on, letting the next clue surface. A dozen agents all pursuing different leads, most of them complete blind alleys, and Emily supervising, reading the reports, collating the information, waiting, _waiting_ for something to jostle loose. 

She pauses by the map. Four banks hit in the last three weeks. All of them carefully planned, carefully timed. It doesn’t read to her like daredevil hits. These are particular, well-chosen -- but not for ease of robbery, certainly. These are nice banks, high-security, and without as much of a yield as Emily would have expected.

There’s a reason they were picked, though. 

No customers in common, between the broken-into safety deposit boxes. Always five, apparently random, but there _has_ to be a connection. 

“Found something?” she asks one of the analysts.

His mouth twists to the side. “Maybe,” he admits. “But it’s ...thin. Safety deposit box 503 at the first bank is owned by an Annabelle Beek, and 1121 at bank number four is under a corporation that recently merged with a company owned by her uncle, Emmanuel Lakin.” 

Sounds like coincidence. “Follow it up,” says Emily. Why not? 

There are other leads. A man who doesn’t look at the camera during one of the bank robberies -- a cell phone found in the trash two blocks away -- a dozen dozen tips through the crime line -- following the trace of Izzy’s old colleagues. 

In the meantime: 

Waiting.

~*~

And time passes. 

A blur of days. Wake up each morning, spend the day waiting in agony for something to happen, for someone to need his services. Some days, he can get away with not going out on the bridge except once or twice. Some days he’s out there the whole damn day, or the whole damn night. 

It’s night, now. The river is ice, far below, and the wind bites with chill. Moonlight, above. The city is lit sporadically, and Howard grimaces at the sight. 

“It looks so quiet from out here,” he says, unthinking. 

They’re waiting. A truck is being inspected, from roof to axles. 

Barsad glances to him. “It isn’t,” he says. 

“I know.” 

“The crowds raven.” His eyes turn back to the city. “They shout and clamor when there are many, and they tear each other to pieces. The weak are destroyed. The strong live with the fear that one day strength will not be enough.” To Howard, then: “How does it feel, knowing that you’re all one step away from chaos?” 

Howard’s stomach is sour.

“I guess you saw that before, didn’t you?” 

Barsad doesn’t respond.

“After Katrina.” 

The look Barsad shoots Howard is, oddly, almost puzzled. 

“In the end,” says Howard, “can you really blame people for just trying to survive? There’s worse cruelties.” A beat. “Like pushing them there yourself.” 

A low sound like a growl, from Barsad. “You’re right,” he says. “There is worse.” 

“Like,” and Howard’s throat is dry. He thinks over the briefing the FBI gave him. “Like... Izzy?” 

He wishes it were lighter out. He can see the dull shine of the moon, reflected in Barsad’s dark eyes, but he can’t read the emotion there. Something careful and blank, or wounded, or cold? 

When Barsad steps closer to him, Howard tenses, but no attack comes. Just a handful of words, murmured in Howard’s ear. 

Barsad pulls away, and Howard thinks he sees Barsad's lips quirk. A half-smile. 

Minutes later, when Howard returns to the base at the other side of the bridge: 

“What did he say?” asks one of the FBI.

Howard, eyebrows still furrowed, says: “He said -- tomorrow, they’ll inspect the third and fifth trucks.” 

~*~

Backpack over Will’s shoulder with the sniper rifle disassembled and packed inside. He wears jeans; a jacket; gloves. Nothing out of the ordinary. Makes his way down an empty hallway, streaked with half-dry paint; counts one, two, three... and four doors down the east side of the building. Shut and locked. Kicks it in, with one sharp motion, reaching in to catch the doorknob before it can slam. 

He picked right. 

Sixth floor of this building, fourth room over, and he can see just past the chimney on the neighboring building’s roof and into the courtyard where the trade will take place between Izzy and the Masked Mercenary. Bane. 

Will plays backstop. Remembers the touch of Izzy’s hands between his shoulderblades, as he’d made use of the shooting range. Remembers the taste of her lips in the kiss they shared earlier, for luck. 

He’s completely hers, now. Owned. It’s reassuring, not to have to worry. 

He sets up the rifle with smooth and unhurried motions. Barrel, scope, stand. 

Watching for only a few minutes before Izzy steps into view. He follows her with the crosshairs, and for a moment his finger twitches onto the trigger. Strokes the metal curve of it, like touching an old friend. 

...No. 

~*~

“We’ve got them!” 

The analyst is breathless. 

The train goes something like this: 

The cell phone from the trashcan was a prepaid one.

The card used to buy the cell phone was a prepaid card.

That prepaid card was used at a convenience store.

Three blocks down from the convenience store, a car was stolen.

The stolen car was found across from an empty apartment complex, under construction. 

“Let’s go,” says Emily. There are butterflies in her stomach, butterflies with sharp-edged razor-wings. She checks her gun on the way over and wonders if she’s about to kill an old friend.


	7. Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short update. Sorry, guys; the world is conspiring against me and I don't want to burn through what I have written too quickly until I know I'll be able to write the rest.

“He’s leaving us an opportunity,” says JJ. “It’s an attempt to communicate.” Her hands flat on the conference room table.

“Or it’s a trap,” Howard points out.

“A trap for what?” asks Reid.

“He could be testing our response,” suggests Morgan. “Just to see what we’d do.”

“We don’t have any cards up our sleeves,” counters Reid; “what you see is what you get.”

“It could be that he _wants_ the chance to kill. Giving us the opportunity to betray him.”

“We can’t betray anyone -- he betrayed his cause to _us_.”

The words, the debates fly back and forth. Emily settles her arms, crossed over her chest. Feels JJ’s eyes on her, but won’t return the glance between them.

~*~

The meet proceeds in silence.

Not true silence. Just silence to Will’s ears, so far away, viewing the encounter through the narrowness of a scope.

Someone joins Izzy. Three someones, two dressed in street clothes, and one with a motorcycle helmet over his head. Bane, Will thinks. Casually, he spots five, six, seven different concealed weapons between the three. 

They speak. Izzy’s lips move, one of the others responds. He centers the crosshairs on Bane’s chest. Drifts back to Izzy, and watches the box that she holds.

It occurs to him that Izzy seems uglier from up here. There’s a nastiness that shines through, a glint of sadistic joy that he can see in her eyes, from a distance. It makes him uncomfortable. When she’s close, when he feels the touch of her hands and the brush of her lips, it seems there’s nothing _wrong_ about her.

His finger is touching the trigger again.

“Don’t do it, Will.”

Will freezes.

~*~

The better part of a year ago:

The tail end of a long hostage situation. Bombs attached to him with loving, painstaking care, wired cleverly and intricately. It was a valentine from Izzy’s then-lover.

I-Z-Z-Y on the number pad stopped the first countdown. A wire cut stopped the second.

After, Will sagged like all of his strings had been cut. His heart pounded like someone took a hammer to his chest.

“How’d you do that?” he asked, marveling at the woman who saved his life.

“I don’t know,” said Emily, then; “I guess I just didn’t overthink it.”

~*~

Today, she holds the barrel of her gun on him. The sights line up. If she shoots, she will kill him. That’s what they tell you, in training; if you have to pull out your gun, make sure you’re ready to shoot. Make sure you’re ready to kill.

This is the first time since Emily was a rookie that she wondered if she could do it.

Will’s hand doesn’t drop from the trigger.

“Will,” she repeats. She can see beyond him, following his sights, that there’s something happening. A group of people. “Is Izzy down there?”

“You chasin’ me, Emily?” he asks.

Is it her imagination, or does he truly sound _that_ lost?

“JJ’s out there,” says Emily, “and she never gave up on you.”

His hand drops, then, and he winces, like she hit him. “JJ doesn’t love me.”

“Do you really believe that?” Not true, Emily knows; so _very_ much not true. “Did Izzy tell you that?”

Will snaps. “Don’t you talk about her!” Rounding on Emily, moving to his feet.

“Who, Izzy?” Emily’s gun is unwavering, but she thinks -- no. She can’t pull the trigger. She sees Will flush with joy over his newborn son; she sees Will shaking with relief after Emily saved his life. She sees the first time JJ and Will kissed in front of her. “Izzy’s a killer, Will. She hurt you. She took you hostage.”

Will’s fists are clenched. His eyes, wild.

“You know who you are,” persists Emily. “You know where you belong. With Henry...”

And this is when he attacks.


End file.
